t, seconded for Secret Service?
Have you ever been surprised by anything? I don't know. You have said
often in my hearing that you suspect every one. Have you suspected me?
Sometimes when I have caught that sidelong squint of yours, that
studied accidental glance which sees so much, I have felt almost sure
that you were far from satisfied that Trehayne was the man he gave
himself out to be. I have been useful to you. I have eaten your salt,
and have served you as faithfully as was consistent with the supreme
Orders by which I direct my action. With you I have run down and
captured German agents, wretched lumps of dirt, whom I loathe as much
as you do. Those who have sworn fidelity to this fair country of
England, and have accepted of her citizenship--things which I have
never done--and then in fancied security have spied upon their adopted
Mother, I loathe and spit upon. I have taken the police oath of
obedience to my superiors, and I have kept it, but I have never sworn
allegiance to His Majesty your King, whom I pray that God may preserve
though I am his enemy. To your blunt English mind, untrained in logic,
my sentiments and actions may lack consistency. But no. Those agents
whom we have run down, you and I, were traitors--traitors to England.
Of all traitors for whom Hell is hungry the German-born traitor is the
most devilish. I would not have you think, my friend, that I am at one
with them. Never while I have been in your pay and service have I had
any communication direct or indirect with any of the naturalised-
British Prussian scum, who have betrayed your noble generosity. I have
taken my Orders from Vienna, I have communicated always direct with
Vienna. I am an Austrian naval officer. I am no traitor to England.

* * * * *

I spring from an old Italian family which has long been settled in
Trieste. For many generations we have served in the Austrian Navy.
With modern Italy, with the Italy above all which has thrown the Holy
Father into captivity and stripped the Holy See of the dominions
bestowed upon it by God, we have no part or lot. Yet when I have met
Italian officers, and those too of France, as I have frequently done
during my cruises afloat, I have felt with them a harmony of spirit
which I have never experienced in association with German-Austrians
and with Prussians. I do not wish to speak evil of our Allies, the
Prussians, but to one of my blood they are the most detes